


Just Five Nights

by Cheatou



Category: Carmilla (Web Series), Five Nights at Freddy's
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2020-03-29 11:28:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19018993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cheatou/pseuds/Cheatou
Summary: So, the new Fnaf game is out... and the Carmilla novel is out... and I haven't written or posted anything in ages, so let's see how bad this can go. I'll update tags as I write, but as of right now, I don't know where this story is going, so I can't tag much. Instead of Betty going missing, her high school friends got worried and called her parents, who actually checked up on their daughter. They pulled her out of school, so Laura never had a reason to start her investigation... which means that Laura now has the time and energy for a part-time job. Cookies don't buy themselves, after all. It's just a pity that a new branch of an old pizzeria doesn't have any mysteries whatsoever for an inquisitive mind to distract herself with...





	1. New Job

So, I honestly don’t know what I’m doing with this story beyond going back to the beginning and breaking the flow of a few things. Hopefully it makes sense, and if there are any problems, we’ll find out together. We will also find out how the relationships are going to work and who all is going to make it through this situation together, so I’ll update tags as I get the chance to. The timelines I’m using are essentially Season 1 of Carmilla if Season 1 of Carmilla never got to happen and a modified FNAF 1 location replica where FNAF 3 is yet to occur, but only because the Fazbear franchise has yet to actually go out of business. Laura, being Laura, is curious but oblivious, and to get Laura to actually work in the first location, she has to be alone without a supernatural lover willing and able to swing in and save the day. For the most fun, it helps for her to be totally oblivious of the supernatural. What if her first exposure isn’t living with a vampire? What if it’s something a little more… interesting.

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Laura hummed to herself as she pulled on a shirt, careful not to break the half of the cookie in her mouth as she did so. She had plenty of time, technically, before her new job started, but it had been ages since she’d felt so excited for anything. She had pulled her hair back into a ponytail and had found a pair of nice slacks for work, so she could use this time to enjoy a quick treat.

Still idly munching on the treat in her mouth, Laura looked herself one last time. She was short, sure, but for this job she’d invested in a pair of black shoes with a subtle platform to them so she wasn’t tiny. Her kahki slacks were ironed and had a clean crease going down her legs, hopefully something to give the impression that she was taller, and her purple polo shirt was fitting but not tight.

For a moment, Laura considered bringing a few more cookies to much on during her shift, and maybe a book or something else light to keep herself entertained.  Sure, she could bring along homework, but it was her first day. Laura didn’t want to make a bad impression, and she figured that bringing a load of papers and books was a sure way to piss off her boss. Still, other than that, she was ready for her first day.

“Well, someone’s more bouncy than usual today.”

Laura jumped, biting down on the cookie in her mouth and dropping the other half. Carmilla caught it almost reflexively, and Laura found herself taking deep breaths through her nose so she didn’t spray her roommate with half-chewed cookie chunks.

“Well ath leath-“ Laura swallowed, “I’ve got a job!”

Carmilla’s nose scrunched up as she handed the half-cookie back to Laura. “As what, a cookie-tester?”

“Ha ha,” Laura said, but the sarcasm was undercut by her excited joy. “As a, wait, is that a real job? I mean I assume someone would have to do it, but I figured that was probably a volunteer thing.”

Carmilla shrugged with some non-committal noise that might have been a word or might just have been a dismissal. It was hard to tell sometimes. She might not have been the most conversational roommate ever, but Laura was just glad someone else had moved in after the Betty situation.

Her original roommate, one Betty Spielsdorf, had seemed like a great girl. Laura had only met her two, maybe three times, before Betty’s parents had come to visit and decided to drag the party-girl back home. It had been weird to Laura to learn that Betty had been a straight-laced honors student before, but her dorm head Perry had reassured her that plenty of girls went to college and decided to cut loose, as it were. It hadn’t changed the way Laura had felt after being yelled at by Betty’s dad for “corrupting” his “Elizabeth”. No matter that Betty hadn’t been in the dorm for more than a few hours over the course of the first two weeks, Laura was still the bad guy. It had stung, but Laura had consoled herself with the thought that he just didn’t know the whole story.

Laura just didn’t know how little she knew, as well.

Betty’s dad had come back to apologize to Laura a week later. Apparently, the changes in Betty’s personality had been a result of something going wrong in her brain, a tumor or something, and the doctors were planning to do surgery to try and remove whatever was messing with Betty’s head.  The last thing Laura had been told before he’d left were that Betty was about to have brain surgery, and that the chances of her recovering weren’t great. Even if Betty did recover, she wouldn’t be able to go back to a college not near a big hospital, so if Laura wanted to see Betty again she would have to visit. His words had been an apology, but Laura couldn’t help but blame herself.

No one had felt the need to let Laura know if Betty was recovering, or if she was even alive.

The next two weeks were miserable for Laura. Surprisingly, no one was moved to fill Betty’s bed, and Betty’s father had left a lot of Betty’s possessions, so Laura was surrounded with silent reminders of the girl’s fate. Laura hadn’t known anything was wrong with Betty. Betty’s own parents hadn’t known anything was wrong with Betty. Had they not gotten concerned calls from one of Betty’s old friends, no one would have known anything was up until it was too late. Laura didn’t have a friend like that to do the same for her, and even though in her head knew she couldn’t have done anything differently, her heart hurt when she thought about how helpless she was to do anything for her ex-roommate.

When the roommate from hell had moved in almost a month into the semester, Laura had just been grateful to have somebody, anybody, sharing her space so she wasn’t constantly surrounded by silence. Carmilla, meanwhile, spent most of her afternoon and evening time out doing whatever it was Carmilla did, but the dark-haired girl was there in the mornings, mumbling to herself in her sleep. That was what helped Laura the most; Carmilla’s mumbling was such a relaxed sound, not like the dream-Betty’s crying or the sounds of her loved ones begging her to say anything else but the nonsense about the light. In the mornings, when she was still half-asleep, it was Carmilla’s sleeping sounds that soothed her. Carmilla was never in during the worst of the nightmares, so Laura didn’t have to worry about waking her roommate up, which in turn helped her relax and led to fewer nightmares.

Not to say that Carmilla was happy to be there. The first week had been grumbling, glaring, cookie-stealing, and making herself as much of a nuisance as possible. The blood in her soy milk had been a rough surprise when Laura had grabbed the wrong container by accident one morning after a bad string of nightmares. Her first instinct was to freak out, but the terror of Carmilla moving out had stopped her cold. Laura couldn’t be alone again, wrapped up in an empty room with memories of Betty hanging around. She’d ended up apologizing to Carmilla for grabbing her milk by accident, and in what was absolutely her most embarrassing moment, had broken down and begged Carmilla to forgive her and not move out.

Carmilla, normally a mysterious rebellious figure with the composure of an ice queen, had looked terrified and confused. No one had told her about the Betty incident, and Laura hadn’t had the energy to try socializing between Betty’s disappearance and Carmilla moving in, so the tiny blonde had unloaded on the very much overwhelmed Carmilla. An overwhelmed Carmilla who promised to stay.

Which had led to a weirdly tense dynamic between the two of them.

“Cupcake?”

Laura blinked, startled.

“You zoned out again,” Carmilla said, trying to sound annoyed. Trying. Her gaze was too soft to keep up the act, though. Whether she’d meant to or not, Laura had gotten her to care. “I said, what does Xena think of this job.”

“ _Danny_ ,” Laura said, emphasizing her name, “doesn’t know.”

“You didn’t tell your girlfriend that you got a new job? A night job?” Carmilla asked in disbelief, wide chocolate brown eyes peering into Laura like she was staring into her soul. Laura blinked, then looked away. “You know she’s going to-“  
                “Ex.” The silence hung between them for a long, heavy moment. “My ex-girlfriend. Doesn’t need. To know.” Even without looking, Laura could feel Carmilla’s gaze on her. “I have to go, my shift starts soon,” Laura lied, dropping the half-cookie she was holding into the trash can at the end of the island of their shared kitchenette as she left.

Laura could still feel Carmilla’s gaze burning into her as she walked, but the excitement from earlier was coming back as she got away from the school. Silas was a fascinating campus, and Laura was eager to start learning more about it, but it was hard to feel like she was a part of anything. She’d spent her first month at Silas exhausted and alone, and it felt like it was too late to get into any of the groups she’d seen around the grounds.

Seeing the restaurant was like seeing a beacon of safety and warmth. They’d expanded into Canada when Laura was a kid, so a lot of her formative years included her father hovering nearby as she played in the ball pit, climbed through plastic tubes, and played games with the other kids. Styria wasn’t exactly the most obvious choice for a branch to open up, but Laura was just happy to have this piece of her childhood with her. Plus now she could add ‘first real job’ to her list of happy memories of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza.

The parking lot was almost empty, but there were still a few cars and the lights were on inside the building. Freddy’s closed at 9, and it was 10:30 now, so Laura figured they were just doing cleaning and closing down the place for the night. She was supposed to be here at 11 to meet someone named Mike Schmidt to go over paperwork, but hopefully they wouldn’t mind her being a bit early.

Laura approached the building slowly, eyes wide as she took in the glow of the sign. Freddy’s face stared back at her, eyes wide with excitement and grinning down at her. Her dad had never let her get close to any of the animatronics at the Freddy’s back in Toronto. In fact, it was after she’d told him that she wanted to hug Freddy that he’d started insisting on her carrying around bear spray.

“You must be Miss Hollis.”

Laura jumped, startled, and turned around to see a man behind her. He was tall, lean but with broad shoulders, with blue eyes that seemed to stare into her soul as much as Carmilla’s did. It was as Laura was looking at his eyes that she noticed his hat, and then her gaze dropped to his name tag. Mike Schmidt.

“You’re American?” Mike’s gaze went from being heavy in a way Laura couldn’t quite put into words to being curious and… could sharp describe the way a person looked? The blue of his eyes was glacial, suddenly cold and sharp. Laura shifted, suddenly anxious. This man had gone from reminding her of her roommate to being a threat, and she found herself slipping a hand into her pocket to wrap her fingers around her bear spray. “Your accent, I’m sorry, I wasn’t expecting an American voice.”

Mike relaxed, and Laura found herself relaxing, too. “Yeah, I, uhh, I’ve worked for the company a long time. There was some legal trouble a few years back. They ended up, ended up pretty much moving me around everywhere.” Laura frowned as he said that, confused.

“Moving you around?”

“Yeah.” For a moment, Laura thought he wasn’t going to elaborate. He took a deep breath, then continued. “I, uhh, I move with the company. They open a new location, put me there for a few months, then move me somewhere else. They actually fired me back when I started, but ended up calling me back so I could keep going. Something about illegal termination, they, ahh, they tried to fire me for reasons they couldn’t actually fire me for, things I didn’t actually do, so I’m pretty much guaranteed a job as long as I stay with Freddy’s.”

“That’s a lot of moving, though,” Laura murmured, her eyes lingering on his shoulders. He was tense. Wasn’t that supposed to be a sign of danger? She couldn’t remember every word of her dad’s lectures on threatening men, but Mike didn’t seem like he was totally there. Then again, moving every few weeks couldn’t be easy on a person. “Must be stressful.”

“I enjoy it. I love this company,” Mike said, and for a moment, his eyes lit up with some happy nostalgia. “Once you’ve made it through your first week, the company doesn’t like to let its survivors go. It’s like family. Why don’t we get you into the light and let you fill out your paperwork inside. There’s some legal contracts and stuff we kind of have to go over.”

“Okay,” said Laura, beaming. “Let’s go!”


	2. Night 1

So, I’m also playing a little bit with Carmilla’s reactions, too. She has no history with Laura, no personal stake. The sacrifice to the anglerfish god has already happened, and Laura was unaware of much of anything during this time. Carmilla became her roommate because of beaurocratic bullshit, not because someone needed to keep an eye on the journalist doing dangerous stories or because she was a potential target. The first actual interaction the two have is pretty much Laura breaking down in a way that Carm is NOT expecting while Carmilla is still in a weird place emotionally, and after that Laura doesn’t bring up or seem to care that her roommate is keeping blood in their shared fridge.

But before we can see more Carmilla, Laura has to make it through night 1. Alone. Like I said, this is going to be fun.

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Laura felt her eyes glazing over as she read the legal text again, trying to figure out why it was so unsettling. She couldn’t quit for five days, which made sense. She was literally contractually obligated to work for a week, with the weekend off, so that if they needed to find a replacement they had the time to do so. Fair. The comments about filing missing people reports were almost identical to the ones she had signed as a new student at Silas, so maybe that was just a local thing. Nothing about it looked wrong, per se, but something about this situation was somehow off.

Something about this situation felt… unsafe.

Laura paused, looking at her pen.

Danny didn’t want her doing anything unsafe.

 “Is everything okay?” Mike asked, curiously.

Laura nodded, determined, and gave him a forced smile. “Beaurocracy. Red tape, legal writing, signing contracts. Business as usual, y’know?”

“Don’t worry.” Mike stopped, staring at Laura for a moment with a weird look in his eyes, then shook his head. “Don’t even worry. This job sounds boring, I know, but I promise it’s more excitement than it sounds like.”

“What, do people just need to get their Faz-fix in the middle of the night?” Laura asked, already signing another page. “I mean, the brownies here are to die for, so I would probably at least try it in a pinch.”

Mike shrugged. “You’ll see. It’s hard to explain. Besides, don’t you know the robots are haunted?”

Laura laughed at his joke, still signing the papers. She had gone from outright reading them to just skimming them over, but nothing about them looked outright wrong. Laura sat hunched over the desk, her knees between an old speaker and the drawers of the table as she tried to fill out all of the employment forms Freddy’s required of its employees. The fan on the desk was not making it much easier, constantly blowing the papers as she filled them out.

“I think that’s the last one,” Laura said, turning the page over to be sure more papers weren’t hiding below.

“Excellent.” Mike glanced at a clock on top of one of the darkened monitors before her. “And still time to handle introductions before your shift starts at midnight!”

“Good luck tonight.” Both of them jumped at that, turning around in defensive poses. Laura was the first to relax, recognizing the waitress who had been cleaning up tables from the main room. Mike remained tense, but put his hands in his pockets. “Wow, both of you are tense. Hey, maybe you’ll do better than the last three, eh?”

Only the waitress laughed. Mike and Laura glanced at each other, and Laura could almost feel him measuring her up.

“Yeah, I think she’ll last the five.”

Slowly Laura straightened up. This stranger had faith in her. This stranger had more faith in her than her girlfr- Ex. This stranger had more faith in her than her ex did. Even her father, for as supportive as he was, was so smothering and so defensive that this absolute trust that Laura could handle herself was earth-shattering. Laura had a thousand questions running through her head, but that thought was enough to stop her from speaking. He thought she could handle this.

“I’m heading out before it gets any later. I’ll let you guys get to it,” the waitress said. Her eyes lingered on Laura for another moment, then with a note of finality, she said, “It was nice to meet you.”

Laura waited for a few seconds as the waitress left, then turned to Mike.

“Is there something wrong with me? Everyone’s been staring at me today.”

Mike hesitated before his response, taking a step back so that he was in the left doorway of the office. “You’re new, and this job has… driven off… a lot of people. I’m the hiring manager, so it’s my job to make sure you won’t… be run off by the stress.

“When I said the robots were haunted, that, ahh, that wasn’t just a joke. The other guards, they believed it pretty seriously. Some weird things happen round here. ”

It took Laura a few minutes to wrap her head around that.

Three people had fled because they were convinced the robots were haunted. Weird things happened around the restaurant. And this man thought Laura could handle this.

“Well.” Mike thought she could handle this, and Laura felt confidence and excitement fill her. “Then I guess I’ll just have to get to the bottom of it, won’t I?”

“That’s what I like to hear,” Mike said, grinning. “Now let’s introduce you to Freddy and the gang before their internal clocks reset and they go into roaming mode!” Mike stepped out of the tiny office through one of the two doors, and Laura scooted her chair back to stand up. It was as small as the bathroom back in her dorm, possibly smaller, but larger than a closet. Still, Laura was fairly sure she could lay down and touch both walls at once, and it wasn’t much longer than it was wide.

“Roaming mode?” Laura asked, curious, following him out. The whole place was small, a few rooms off the side of one big, main dining area. “Wait, you mean they move around the restaurant? I thought they were stationary.”

“They used to roam all the time,” Mike said, leading Laura up between rows of tables. She could see the stage, but without the lights on she could only see the figures of the animatronics on it. Three individuals; Freddy, Chica, and Bonnie. Her heart raced as they approached, and she looked between Mike and the stage. “When they were put on stage, the roaming mode couldn’t be taken out entirely. They still have to walk around sometimes, or they start… ahh, malfunctioning. Badly.”

Laura stumbled at that, but caught herself. They were feet away from the stage, and Mike was still walking.

“The animatronics wander around, but you have doors to keep them out and lights to see outside your door,” Mike said as he bent over, fiddling with something she couldn’t see. “You want to keep them away, of course. The doors open when there’s no power; if there’s an emergency, you won’t be locked in. But the night… well, you’ve got a generator. It should last the whole night, but you can’t waste the power. This is a magical place. I think you understand that. And there are things here that have some surprises.”

Laura stared at him as he stood back up, glanced at her, and then glanced at the stage.

“I think you, Miss Hollis, might also be full of surprises.”

The stage flooded with light, and Laura had to blink away the pain until her eyes adjusted. There they were. Bonnie, the purple rabbit, was looming over Mike. His eyes were pink, and in the sudden light they almost seemed to glow. He held a guitar in his oversized paws, ready to play at any moment. Chica the Chicken’s eyes were also pink, and like Bonnie’s they seemed to glow. She stood closest to Laura, cupcake on a plate in her left hand instead of an instrument. The cupcake’s eyes were yellow, and the first thing Laura noticed about them was that both Chica and the cupcake had teeth. The bird wore a bib with the words “Let’s Eat!!!” emblazoned on it in bright yellow. Really, though, Freddy was the centerpiece of the stage. He stood front and center, holding a microphone. He and the bunny both had bow ties, but Freddy also had a small top hat, and while his companions had glowing pink eyes, Freddy’s blue eyes didn’t have the same glow. They looked… almost alive. In the glow of the spotlight, all Laura could see were the icons of her childhood, the stars of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, staring at her like she was their audience, and she could barely breathe.

“They’re wonderful.”

It took Laura a moment to realize what she’d said, that she’d even spoken, but when she glanced over at Mike she could see that he understood. They stood there for a few moments, soaking in the wonder and glory of the classical icons before them, and then a loud beeping sound echoed through the dining room.

“It’s 11:30,” Mike said as the lights changed, almost as though his words had triggered the transformation. The main stage lights went dim, and several others turned on. It wasn’t the blinding white that it had been when she’d walked in, but there was more than enough light to see by. The animatronics, in this light, looked… different. Their fur bodies showed stains like this that weren’t obvious in the blinding stage lights, and their eyes looked sunken and dark. “That would be the generators kicking on. You’d better get to your station, Miss Hollis.”

“Thanks,” Laura said, still staring at the robots on stage. She couldn’t quite put her finger on why, exactly, she needed to thank him, but it didn’t matter.

“You remember how to play the recordings?” Mike asked after a few moments, his own gaze locked on the figures on stage as well.

“Yes sir,” Laura said, smiling.

“Then I’ll see you tomorrow evening, Miss Hollis.”

 

Laura found herself walking back to the office in a daze. She could handle this. This job wasn’t what she had signed up for. She could handle this. There was a story here. She could handle this. Every thought was punctuated by her mantra, and Laura found herself feeling different. She wasn’t Laura, the barely-passing college student. She was Miss Hollis, night guard at Freddy Fazbear’s. Some weight lifted, something she couldn’t quite put words on. This felt like a dream.

Maybe a nightmare, maybe a fantasy, but this moment didn’t feel real.

Slowly Laura sat back in her seat. The papers were gone. Mike must have grabbed them on his way out. The forms probably had to be scanned and put into whatever system was behind this place, so it made sense. Besides, if three other people had run, leaving the papers here for her to take or destroy would have been a legal nightmare.

The system before her looked ancient, with cassette and video players mixed among the boxy monitors. Laura knew from her dad’s work that some security systems used the older methods of recording as a matter of security. It wasn’t easy to mess with a video feed if nothing you owned was compatible with it, after all, and even if something wiped out a digital system, the film would still be usable. Not that Laura thought anyone would want to mess with the system of a pizza restaurant.

A buzz startled Laura back into reality. Her phone was in her back pocket, and after a second’s hesitation she pulled it out. It was a call. From Danny.

Laura sighed, then looked at the screens in front of her. Only one of them worked, Mike had warned her, and Laura found herself rejecting the call.

                L: I can’t talk rt now. At work.

Her phone buzzed as she hit send, a message coming through even as she sent hers out.

                D: Where r u? Th Alchm Club party is about 2 start & I don’t c u

                D: Work?

Laura’s mind stopped as she reread Danny’s text message. Danny had demanded that Laura not go to the Alchemy Club’s mixer. She had said it was way too dangerous. So, Laura couldn’t go, but Danny could? And Danny could go alone? 

Wait.

Danny had gone alone… to babysit Laura. Danny had gone alone to a party that was too dangerous for Laura so that she could babysit Laura. Her ex.

A thousand angry replies filled Laura’s mind, and her fingers hovered over the screen for a few seconds before she stopped and closed her phone. Working at night was dangerous. She could hear Danny now, scolding her like a little kid for going out late.

No.

No, Laura was going to do this job. She was going to do it right and Danny was not going to get to her.

Slowly Laura leaned forward, looking over her desk at the landline phone where the recorded message was stored. Her fingers hit play, and the small room was filled with a new voice.

“Hello, hello? Uh, I wanted to record a message for you to help you get settled in on your first night.”

The night guard sounded nervous. Laura stared at the phone silently as her own device buzzed in her hands. She glanced down only long enough to turn it on silent, then stared back up at the ancient landline phone before her.

“Um, I actually worked in that office before you. I'm finishing up my last week now, as a matter of fact. So, I know it can be a bit overwhelming, but I'm here to tell you there's nothing to worry about. Uh, you'll do fine. So, let's just focus on getting you through your first week. Okay?”

“Okay,” Laura said, pulling up the video feed of the main room. It was midnight, and there were three robots on the stage. Everything seemed peaceful so far. For a moment Laura was struck by the ridiculousness of it. She was a glorified alarm in a pizza place. Nothing was going to happen.

“Uh, let's see, first there's an introductory greeting from the company that I'm supposed to read. Uh, it's kind of a legal thing, you know.”

Laura wouldn’t have been surprised at this point if the entire haunted-robots thing was a hazing thing.

“Um, ‘Welcome to Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. A magical place for kids and grown-ups alike, where fantasy and fun come to life. Fazbear Entertainment is not responsible for damage to property or person. Upon discovering that damage or death has occurred, a missing person report will be filed within 90 days, or as soon property and premises have been thoroughly cleaned and bleached, and the carpets have been replaced."

Wait, what? Laura turned her head back to the phone, ignoring the robots on her screen. These tapes were supposed to be old, from a location that didn’t exist. Her paperwork had explicitly said that everything had been flown over from the United States and set up, a way of recycling a location that had closed down.

“Blah blah blah, now that might sound bad, I know, but there's really nothing to worry about.”

So this wasn’t typical Silas weirdness. This wasn’t a Styria thing. Something genuinely weird was happening.

“Uh, the animatronic characters here do get a bit quirky at night, but do I blame them? No. If I were forced to sing those same stupid songs for twenty years and I never got a bath? I'd probably be a bit irritable at night too.”

Laura’s mind flashed back to the sudden change in the characters under the dimmer light. They had looked dirty. But robots didn’t get irritable?

“So, remember, these characters hold a special place in the hearts of children and we need to show them a little respect, right? Okay.”

Unless this phone guy also thought they were haunted. It made sense; the idea had to come from somewhere. And if all of the previous night guards had heard the same tapes…

“So, just be aware, the characters do tend to wander a bit. Uh, they're left in some kind of free roaming mode at night. Uh...Something about their servos locking up if they get turned off for too long.”

Laura nodded as the pieces began to click together. Alone, at night, in a creepy building with weird lights and the suggestion that the robotic figures were aware? Of course it would have freaked a person out.

“Uh, they used to be allowed to walk around during the day too.”

And the suggestion that people had already fled would have just made it worse.

“But then there was The Bite of '87.”

Laura leaned forward in her seat as her mind tried to parse that statement. The next one was worse.

“Yeah. I-It's amazing that the human body can live without the frontal lobe, you know?”

_“I think she’ll last the five.” “It was nice meeting you, Miss Hollis.”_

The waitress thought Laura was going to die.

The other security guard thought Laura could handle this.

“Uh, now concerning your safety, the only real risk to you as a night watchman here, if any, is the fact that these characters, uh, if they happen to see you after hours probably won't recognize you as a person. They'll p-most likely see you as a metal endoskeleton without its costume on.”

Laura looked back at the robots on stage. Were they all endo-whatsits with costumes? They looked the part. She’d gone through a few years believing that they were just people in suits until she’d learned about the amazing work of Afton Robotics.

“Now since that's against the rules here at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, they'll probably try to...forcefully stuff you inside a Freddy Fazbear suit.”

That didn’t sound comfortable. Laura swallowed, the image of the gigantic robots on stage picking her up and forcing her into one of the costumes.

“Um, now, that wouldn't be so bad if the suits themselves weren't filled with crossbeams, wires, and animatronic devices, especially around the facial area. So, you could imagine how having your head forcefully pressed inside one of those could cause a bit of discomfort...and death. Uh, the only parts of you that would likely see the light of day again would be your eyeballs and teeth when they pop out the front of the mask, heh.”

Laura stared forwards at the screen before her.

Her eyes were wide, focused as the words from the recording ran through her head. This wasn’t a joke. This wasn’t a prank. One of the robots was looking at her.

The camera. Bonnie was looking at the camera.

“Y-Yeah, they don't tell you these things when you sign up. But hey, first day should be a breeze. I'll chat with you tomorrow. Uh, check those cameras, and remember to close the doors only if absolutely necessary. Gotta conserve power. Alright, good night."

The room fell silent again, and Laura found herself glancing at the meter in the corner of her display. Two green bars meant she wasn’t using a lot of power, but she was at 81% power and it was just now 1. Laura glanced at the screen again, frowning as she saw the rabbit looking forward. Had she imagined the motion? She kept her stare on the robot for a few more minutes, but it felt like time was dragging on forever. Laura held out as long as she could, watching for any twitch of motion, then glanced down to her phone. It was 1:09. She had missed 2 messages from Danny.

                D: I thought u were going 2 this? For ur story?

                D: I didnt want u here alone

Laura felt her lips pressing together, but held back her scream of frustration. Were the robots attracted to sound? Did they actually move around? Laura glanced back at the robots, still immobile as ever, then began to type a response.

                L: I would have been fine

                L: I don’t need a sitter

A ding, and Laura’s phone lit up again.

                D: The alchmy club is dangerous

Dangerous? The science nerds growing mushrooms all over campus were dangerous? Gross, yes. Questionably unsafe, sure. And there were a few strains of mushrooms poisonous to dogs and other animals growing on campus, probably connected to the club. But the alchemy club themselves?

                L: They’re harmless!

                D: The mushrooms r dangerous

Laura stared at Danny’s reply for a minute. She’d been the one to suggest that maybe the mushrooms should be tested for toxins. She’d borrowed the floor don’s… friend? Lafontane. She’d borrowed the floor don’s Lafontane to run the tests. Yes, they were dangerous to animals, but not to humans unless you did something to it. Laf had explained it to Laura, rambling on in science jargon that seemed to make sense to them and to Laura at the time. Laura was having trouble remembering it, though.

                L: I know, that’s y I was trying 2 prove the alch club was the 1s making the shrooms

Laura stared at her phone as she waited for a response.

                D: So the alchmy club is dangerous

A second passed as Laura stared at the message, and another one popped up.

                D: *were

This time Laura found herself making noise, but she didn’t care. Her fingers flew over the phone’s keyboard as she typed out a response.

                L: Maybe in the future, but the party was safe

Danny replied immediately, again.

                D: The food all came from the alchemy club

No. This was not happening. Danny Lawrence couldn’t be seriously suggesting this.

                L: Do you really think they’d poison everybody

                D: YES

                L: THATS INSANE THERE IS NO WAY IN HELL OR HOGWARTS THEY WOULD JUST POISON EVERYONE.

Laura groaned, looking up from her phone for the first time in a while, then froze.

Oh no no no.

No. This was not happening.

Laura dropped her phone to her desk and shot out of her seat, slamming the light switch by the left door and peeking out, her eyes scanning the hallway. Nothing. The right side? The light flicked on, but there was nothing there. Laura darted back to the computer, not sitting, just hitting the button to change cameras.

Where was Bonnie?

The rabbit wasn’t on stage. They did move.

The air felt suddenly stale. Where was that purple rab- There. Not in the dining hall, in the hallway.

In the hallway outside her door. The left. Laura charged out of her spot and hit the button to close the door. The sound of the door startled her. It was loud, descending from the doorway like something off of an alien spaceship. She couldn't think about that now, she had to get back to the display. Chica and Freddy were still on stage.

Wait, that was everyone, right? Laura checked for the rabbit again. He was out of view of her camera.

Laura checked the dining hall again. Then the prize corner, then the… why was the kitchen black? There was no video for the kitchen? And if the kids play area was out of order, that meant it was empty, right?

Laura groaned as she saw the power meter. It was three fifteen, and she was under half power. She wasn’t going to make it to six at this rate. But the door… the power ticked down as she watched. Just one percent, not enough to be an emergency yet. But the doors took power while they were down, not up.

_If there’s an emergency, you won’t be locked in. But the night…_ Laura swallowed, staring at the screen, then turned it back to the show stage. Chica was gone now, too. A quick flash showed Chica in the dining hall, but Bonnie was still gone.

And the door was still closed.

_You have doors to keep them out and lights to see outside your door._ Lights. Did the lights help? Laura flashed the light on, staring at the window for any sign. She got one. The silhouette of the giant rabbit was visible through her window.

Laura swallowed, then went back to the display and turned it off. Then she turned off the light. She needed to make it to dawn. One way or another. Without the monitor running, the office was a bit quieter. She could hear the sound of motion, and carefully Laura crept back to the door, pressing her ear to the metal. The rabbit was moving. She was sure of it. Laura flashed the light again, then sighed. There was nothing there.

The door wasn’t as loud opening as it was closing, and Laura sprinted back to her seat. She had to be careful. The robots…

Reality hit suddenly, and Laura found herself panicking.

She was sitting in the middle of an empty pizza restaurant, being hunted by robots that were wandering around under her watch. These robots were huge, towering figures and Laura…

Laura could handle this.

As suddenly as her panic came, it vanished. She could handle this. She had to. She had no other choice. She would handle this just fine by herself, and then tomorrow she would see Mike Schmidt and tell him exactly where he could shove his stupid job.

Five minutes. Laura was going to cycle five minutes, check the cameras, and listen. And when six o’ clock came around, she was going to get the hell back to the Silas campus, shove a half dozen donuts down her throat, and pass the fuck out, class be damned.

The first cycle worked fine. Chica was in…. the bathroom? Okay, sure, whatever. The bathrooms were far away enough that it meant Laura was safe from the giant chicken robot. Bonnie was in… not the hallway, not the dining hall, where? There, in parts and services. Also on the far side of the building, far away from the office.

Slowly Laura let out the breath she had been holding. She was lightheaded, but now that the immediate terror was over, she could breathe a little more freely. A little. Quickly, almost absently, Laura flicked through the cameras, looking over her prison for the night.

Something was wrong.

Laura flicked back through, frowning. What had she seen? She’d been so focused on getting through the cameras that she couldn’t quite put her finger on what, exactly, was wrong. Nothing in this view, nothing here, nothing… wait. Cam 5b… the eastern hallway? Laura stared at the poster in confusion. Or, at what should have been the poster. It had been some list of rules before. Now it looked like some newspaper clipping. The cameras weren’t the best, and Laura could only barely make out the title:

Kids vanish at local pizzeria- bodies not found. Laura leaned forwards, almost pressing her nose to the screen. There was no way this was…

Laura jumped up and slammed the button on the right just in time. The door slammed down, but in the darkness she could just barely make out the shape of Chica, teeth visible in a menacing grin. Too many teeth, really, but Laura wasn’t going to open the door and turn on the light to count the teeth on a robot chicken.

Laura glanced back at the display, checking the time and power. Three bars, in the yellow. At 33%, with two hours to go. Scratch that, 32%. Bonnie was back in the dining hall. Laura returned to the door, hit the light, and took a deep breath. Chica was gone.

Laura sat back down, staring at the display for a long, silent minute, then stared up at the camera. She had heard that panic and danger could distort her sense of time, but it was already past 4. Laura couldn’t figure out if she had been in this seat forever or if she had just been there for a few moments. Both of them felt equally true. So, the real question was could she survive for another hour and a half with under 30% power.

Laura flicked through the cameras, then turned them off again, then dashed to the sides to check the lights by the doors. Clear. The halls were clear. Laura turned off the lights and sat back down, breathing deeply. Five minutes passed in silent terror, and then another round of checking everything. The cameras flicked through, then the left side, then the right side. She was clear. Again, and again, clear.

Laura didn’t need to wait five minutes for another moment of terror. Shuffling, on the left. Laura flashed the light just in time to see Bonnie, two seconds before she slammed the door closed.

Bonnie definitely had two jaws. Laura caught her breath for a minute, then flashed the light. The silhouette was still present. Bonnie was still there.

So, the endoskeleton… that must have been the inner jaw. The endoskeleton that the robots would mistake a human adult for must have its own jaw. Laura swallowed hard, terrified and curious. What did the endoskeletons look like?

Laura flashed the light again. Nothing. Bonnie was gone. She opened the door automatically even as she was moving to the other side to check the other door. Nothing. Where was Chica? Laura turned the light back off automatically, then dashed towards the display.

Chica was back in the bathrooms, and Bonnie was on the stage. Why did these things move so much? Laura groaned, sitting back in her chair. It was almost five. Laura flicked back to the show stage, then turned everything off. She was sitting at 14% power. There had to be something she could do.

Everything in Laura’s bones wanted to check the weird poster again, but she couldn’t. The power wouldn’t last that long. She would drain her most valuable resource dry and end up dead before dawn if she checked. Five minute intervals seemed to be working.

Well, working somewhat. Had Laura started off with her intervals, she would have been fine. She wouldn’t have wasted all her power so early in the night, and she wouldn’t be clinging on by the skin of her teeth. A memory of anger filled her, self loathing she couldn’t immediately figure out.

If she didn’t get back to the dorm…

… would Carmilla miss her?

Laura swallowed the lump in her throat, confused. She should have been thinking of Danny, right? Yes, they’d broken up, but Danny was still the one she’d been dating, and apparently Danny had no problem acting exactly the same as when they had been together. Carmilla hadn’t even wanted to be her roommate. They’d been placed together by paperwork and red tape, two individuals alone in double dorm rooms when having an empty room was cheaper for the university.

Laura was still moving almost automatically every few minutes. She’d check the time on her phone, ignoring the three unread messages from Danny, then hit the camera, left light, right light. It didn’t matter. The power ticked down. At 5:23, it was five percent. By 5:28, it was four. 5:34, 3. 2. 1. 0.

The zero burned into her eyes as she stared at it, and then at the clock. She’d made it so close. It was 5:48, and everything went deadly silent.

Everything. The fan on her desk, the soft hum of electronic noise from the hall. Everything.

Laura couldn’t move. There was no way to check anything, so why bother? She had failed. She’d failed Betty, she’d failed her dad, she’d failed Danny. Even Mike, who had set her up in this deathtrap; he’d believed in her, and she had failed.

The shuffling of one of the robots grew closer. It was on her left, and she listened as it drew closer down the hall. It occurred to Laura, too late, that she’d just given up the opportunity to send out one last message. No one would hear her goodbye.

Whatever animatronic it was had made it to the door. For some reason, Laura expected it to be Bonnie. Did they have preferred sides? She sat there in silence for a moment, trying to figure it out and waiting. Laura couldn’t run. Nowhere in the building would be safe, and she knew with a horrifying clarity that she wouldn’t be able to outrun the robots. Krav maga classes were worthless against robots, and what use would bear spray be against digital senses? A tear rolled down Laura’s cheek, silent and cold as she waited for her death.

A tune began to play. Laura didn’t dare move her head, some instinct holding her still to listen to her own funeral dirge. It wasn’t even a sad song. It was upbeat and cheery and… familiar. She’d heard it before… somewhere. A loud chime disrupted the tune, and everything seemed to stand still. For Laura, it felt like some spell had been broken, and she looked over to see who was standing in the left doorway. The lights came on as her eyes met the sapphire gaze of Freddy Fazbear.

It was 6.

The robots roaming modes were deactivated, and the power was back.

She’d survived her first night.


End file.
